


The Dust That Coats The Seams

by Zesty_Bill_Clinton



Category: Cars (Pixar Movies)
Genre: 2nd person POV, Age Difference, Doc’s pov, First Kiss, Humanized Cars, Internalized Homophobia, Longing, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pining, Radiator Springs, Sharing a Bed, Sweat, Unrequited Love, Yearning, a lot of musing abt climate, climate, idk how old each of them are in this but enough that it’s not creepy, idk how to tag this, so much yearning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:35:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21943741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zesty_Bill_Clinton/pseuds/Zesty_Bill_Clinton
Summary: “You were waiting for the dust to settle and bury you until that golden boy showed up and swilled it back into the air”Or Doc muses on how he came to Radiator Springs, and what (or who) might draw him back out of the desert.
Relationships: Doc Hudson/Lightning McQueen
Comments: 5
Kudos: 25





	The Dust That Coats The Seams

**Author's Note:**

> This is just a drabble I wrote abt this pairing bc Doc’s internal monologue has so much potential and I’m a sucker for character studies.
> 
> Does this make any sense? Not sure  
> Did I enjoy writing it? Heck yeah  
> So let me know what you think

When you first moved to Radiator Springs, you never thought you’d get used to the desert. Never thought you’d get used to the dust that seemed to collect everywhere. Dust that clouded the sky, scattered to the heavens by the wheels of endless cars that rolled in one minute, out the next.  
You never thought you’d get used to the dry heat that made you feel hollowed out. Heat that made you into a puppet of dry bones, doomed to fade away into the night. But many things have changed since you moved to Radiator Springs.  
The hollow heat now warms you in ways you never expected. It seems to match the way your body has grown and dried out with time, like dusty herbs now crumbling in the attic. National Geographic once told you that this place once used to be an ocean. Grander than any Atlantic. It hosted schools of fish the size of racing reputations. Seems an appropriate place to have come to dry up.  
You used to be able to handle wetter climates, humid heats. Georgia summers were always damp as hell. They dripped with youth, sopping wet with sweat and heat and bodies. Georgia summers soaked you through with their dreams, cried out a cricket’s song of endless sunsets. Arizona summers, on the other hand, seem to know that nothing lasts forever, teaching you that everything eventually becomes the dust in the wind.

Now the dust in your lungs feels like a memory. It feels like the decades old scrape of stubble against your neck. The dust billowing up around you feels like the smoke of your crash, like the tire spit of a thousand races you’d never run. It scratches like a record player memory while you shelter yourself in air conditioned cocoons. But at least you’re no longer drowning. 

In all honesty, you were prepared to die here. Ticking down the days till you let your bones rot dry, till you let them build the next layer of strata in this place’s eternal geography.

You were waiting for the dust to settle and bury you until that golden boy showed up and swilled it back into the air.

Lightning McQueen rolled into town like a gust of wind. He blew in like the wind of the mountains, churning up the dust of your artifact town as if it were a race track. He broke open your shell and swept out the cobwebs. He played archeologist to something deep inside you that you thought was already fossilized.

You wanted to hate Lightning McQueen, but you could never truly hate pretty boys.

The first thing you learned about Lightning McQueen was that he was incredibly slick. No, not in the metaphoric sense, but literally. He sweat bullets constantly. Like his body was trying to cure the desert’s aridity all by itself. He sweat like he had just tumbled out of the roll cage in every moment of every day. You’d almost be infuriated by it, should probably be grossed out by it, if it didn’t make you even more infatuated. Something about it turned your old man cogs and made you love him even more. Maybe it was some fetish hitherto undiscovered, or just more of you being the perverted old mentor you knew you were. But something about it drew you in further, all the ways he seemed to glisten, like he was waxed gold. Like a precious penny that shone with youth. He poured Georgia summer mugginess out of his skin like stars and made you feel like more than a paper mache man. Just being around him felt like he was melting the calcium out of your fossilized heart. 

You didn’t need anymore than that.

Well, need is a relative term. You might not have needed more, but by god did you want more. You wanted desperately, wanted to touch and hold. Wanted to covet and caress and for once have what truly mattered.  
Yet despite your want you knew that nothing ever would come of you and him. Men like you never got what they truly wanted. Back alley substitutes were what you got, what you had to make do with.  
You got the privilege of some things, and you tried to make yourself grateful for that.  
You got to look when he wasn’t looking. You got to pull him close in celebration for a counted 6 seconds. (Always 6 seconds, because you always counted. Always counted because you knew if you didn’t, you’d never let go.)  
To ask for more, to demand more, from this golden boy, would be like asking to reanimate a corpse. Perhaps he had unearthed your heart, but you had seen Jurassic Park. You know that what’s dead is dead and that nature never meant for resurrections. She never meant happy endings for men like you.

Sometimes you dream of him in your bed, of him coming to you in the middle of the night. You dream he’s asking you how to do it, how to do it right, and it takes your breath away how willing you are to teach this precious boy not only how to race, but how to love.  
Until you wake up and remember that you never learned how to love, that all you have is 6 seconds and longing. You have bathroom stalls and back rooms and slashed tires from boys who you tried to love but who couldn’t know what that meant between men. Love meant white wedding dresses and white picket fences and golden glistening boys that you never got to touch for more than 6 seconds.

It feels like a dream when Lightning McQueen is breaking into your hotel room in Daytona, sweating like the first time you saw him, nervous in a courtroom.

“What the hell are you doing here?” You ask, realizing how exposed you are in a tee shirt and groggy eyes.

“The AC in my room is broken, and they can’t fix it till morning, and all the rooms are full so they can’t move me, and I’m fucking sweating, and”

“You need a place to sleep?”

“Yea”

You bite the inside of your mouth. This feels like a bad porno. You’re ready to jump out the window of this overpriced Daytona hotel. Of course you’ll say yes, you can’t say no to him.

“Fine.” You say, putting on your mentor’s scowl, hoping it will hide the longing that’s leaking out of every pore of your body.  
“Take the bed, I’ll sleep on the couch”

“I couldn’t do that Doc, it’s your room. And you were already sleeping.” 

“It’s fine kid.” You say, feeling your guts curl like they’re tangled on thorns.

“Doc ‘swear I’ll be fine on the couch, unless”

“No.”

“What? I didn’t even say anything!” The kid starts, but you can see it on his face. It’s his face when he knows he’s breaking the rules, knows he’s pushing his limits.

You shake your head, but Lightning doesn’t stop grinning.  
“I mean it is a queen, if you’re up for it, we could share.” 

Your brain says no. Your brain screams “6 seconds”. Your brain says slashed tires, says broken heart, says whatever you do, don’t say yes.

You press your lips together, and your answer comes out anyway.  
“Fine”

You’re lying in bed. Lightning McQueen is lying next to you. He’s facing away from you, but you can hear his breath. Of course you can hear his breath. You notice everything about him. You notice the freckles on his shoulders and file it away for your fantasies. Maybe if you ever slept again you could kiss them in a dream. You realize your chest and his back are barely 6 inches apart. You wonder if this breaks the 6 second rule. At least you aren’t touching.  
But isn’t this worse than touching? Staring, watching, drinking him in with your eyes because he’s asleep.  
Or at least, you thought he was asleep, until he’s rolling over and into your eyes.

“You’re not asleep?” He whispers, when your eyes do meet.

You grunt out a no and he casts his eyes away for a moment. 

“Doc, can I ask you a question?”

Your heart stops in your chest and you think it’s a heart attack. This is when you die right?

“Well anyway, I was just wondering... you know what it’s stupid.”

“Out with it kid, just ask.”

“Have you ever, I guess, had feelings...”

“Everyone has feelings kid.”

“Let me finish!” He shout whispers, and your heart clenches once again at how much you love him.  
“I was just wondering if you’ve ever had feelings, like romantic feelings, for- for other men”

Your heart stops in your chest and you can’t respond. All of this, this is definitely a bad idea.

“I’m sorry I asked, that’s weird, it’s not like I... pretend this never happened.”

Lightning moves to roll over and your body moves like a reflex. Your hand goes out onto his arm and he stops.

One  
“Hey kid”  
Two  
“I know it’s awkward but”  
Three  
“You don’t have to feel like you”  
Four  
“Doc it’s fine seriously”  
Five  
“We don’t have to talk about this”  
Six  
“Yes we do”

And then it’s seven seconds, ten seconds, twenty seconds. And Lightning’s not talking and you’re not talking. But you’re touching. Hand to arm. Finger to skin, dermis to dermis, touching that feels like fire eating at you, like you’ve sutured your veins together and you can’t stop touching him without leaving something of yourself behind.

And then he’s licking his lips. And it feels like the blood coloring those dangerously pink lips is yours. It feels like the pulse of his heart is tapping yours into time. It feels like too much and not enough. You shouldn’t ask for more, you can’t ask for more.  
You didn’t ask for more.  
This was his idea.

And then his lips are on yours, and it feels like you’re melting into liquid iron, mingling into his liquid gold. You’re tainting him, of course you’re tainting him. His pure golden splendor colored with iron that weakens and rusts. Every touch you make feels like asking permission and every second longer feels like he never thought of it as a question.

You kiss Lightning McQueen and he kisses you back. He is the sun beating down, scorching the earth alive, and you know you’ll never stop burning.


End file.
